On Set: AF100 Commercial Shoot

I had a job last weekend, directing and shooting a commercial for a prominent local plastic surgeon. The client wanted a cinematic look, with models in various scenes shot in a fancy house. Check. With my 1AC, Dave Novak, and Supergrip Greg Ventura, we knocked it out in what ended up being a really fun day of shooting.

Since the client wanted a cine look, I of course used my Panasonic AF100 to shoot the spot, relying on Zeiss primes and a Canon 16-35/2.8 L II to refract the light for me. Footage was recorded via HD-SDI to an AJA Ki Pro Mini.

AJA Ki Pro Mini, powered by an Anton Bauer Hytron 140 brick.

The client wanted everything to be in slow motion, so in order to get the footage onto the AJA recorder, I had to shoot in 720/60p and convert to 30p in post, as the Ki Pro Mini does not support variable frame rate mode… yet. Hopefully a firmware update will fix that problem soon, and yes, it is a problem. To be fair though, I don’t know of a recorder that does support 1080p/60 yet, although I think the Cinedeck might. At $10k though, I’m not even going to bother to go to their website to check.

Since I knew the client was going to want a significant amount of post processing, I wasn’t about to record to AVCHD; I had to go 4:2:2 out to the Ki Pro Mini.

The shoot went really well, and I’m very happy with the results. The best thing about this shoot is that this job allowed me to pull the trigger and order my copy of DaVinci Resolve, so I can finally update my color grading capabilities into the 21st century. It should arrive Friday. I can’t wait to try it out on this commercial!

BTW, I learned on this shoot that although they are of the finest glass, Schneider filters still won’t survive a fall onto a large rock. Take that wisdom with you into the future.

Panasonic AF100 on a Dana Dolly, on location in north San Antonio. A rough frame grab from the shoot with the AF100. Lens: Zeiss ZE 50/1.4 Planar.

Yours truly directing a commercial shoot with the Panasonic AF100.

This is what a guy looks like when he's fuming about having just dropped his Schneider 4x4 Tru-Pol filter on a rock.

How did you use the Zeiss Planar on a 4/3 mount? Were they EF mounts with an adapter?
Just wondering as my only experience with the zeiss planar’s is with a 5D mk ii, where the f stop is controlled via a dial on the camera body…just wondering how this would transcend onto an AF100 with an adapter?

The original Psycho, dticered by Alfred Hitchcock. I think this was the first movie to do this, if I’m not mistaken. The point was to give the audience the feeling of being a Peeping Tom, spying on a couple having, what was considered an illicit affair at the time (they weren’t married, that’s why it was considered illicit.) This was meant to throw the audience off track, since the first third of the movie is all misdirection about what the movie is really about.